


Break a Little, Heal a Lot

by panther



Series: Break a Little Heal a Lot Verse [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-03-22 09:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3724504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panther/pseuds/panther
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one notices Poppy and that is why she can help everyone in that horrible year. That is why she knows things other teachers do not. That is why she can support her lover when no one else can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Poppy stays at Hogwarts because she is a Healer and knows nothing else. Whether she is at Hogwarts or St Mungos she will see terrible things and Hogwarts often seems like the safer option. The option least likely to break her at least. Plus, the children need her help. Of course, she is not allowed to officially heal them after detentions but no one pays attention to Poppy. No one ever has. Slipping from corridor to corridor and Common Room to Common Room comes easy. Other than that she writes notes about what students can do to help themselves and has Filius, Minerva and Pomona slip them into homework feedback notes and revised timetables. Horace is more careful and can often help the Slytherins that can be trusted himself. 

If she left Hogwarts she would become a passive bystander. Working in a shop she would do nothing and therefore it appears as if she approves. At Hogwarts she can help and show the students not to give up. She shows the students that if the new teachers try their best to break them then Poppy will do better to put them back together. When children start hiding in the Room of Requirement Poppy is the only teacher that knows, the only one they trust completely. Minerva is trusted of course but Minerva is also a target. If the Carrows try to break someone's mind it will be hers. No one notices Poppy. That used to bother her. Now it means everything. 

What the students never realise is that they are not the only ones subjected to brutality. The teachers are hexed and cursed in staff meetings to keep them in line. Poppy hides at the back and makes sure that when she is in the hospital wing that she is nice to the children she suspects and fluffs their pillows more. Horace makes more potions than she logs and Severus slips more her way after that. It keeps Poppy going. The way Minerva talks at night she knows she does not trust Severus or believe he is on their side. A great risk has been taken to show Poppy that he cares and that trust means a lot. More importantly it gives her hope. 

Minerva must always be available for her students so Poppy always goes to her. Sometimes the rooms are empty when she arrives and she can waste so much time looking at pictures and ornaments on shelves and learning a little more every time. Their relationship has lasted a long time but always because while they lived together they were still apart. Corridors and floors divided them and so Minerva could preserve the barriers that make her feel safe. Every year Poppy has chipped a little more away but it is not until they are all but imprisoned that they fall away completely. 

She is looking at a photo of Minerva's dead husband when the door shuts behind her and she startles, "Min. There you are. Is everything ok?"

Minerva does not even notice what Poppy is looking at as she staggers across the room while pulling off her hat and outer robes. She slumps into a chair and presses her fingers to her temples. Poppy immediately makes her way over and sits in the chair opposite. " Longbottom has disappeared. He left coded message that makes me think that is he is ok but...another one Pop. I worry about them all."

Guilt floods Poppy's system. She knows where Neville is. She healed his latest bruises before coming to Minerva's chambers. "I'm sure the lad is fine, Min. He has changed so much this year. Grown up so much. Potter helped him there."

" _Potter_ is not here! Maybe if he were this would not be happening! Maybe he could...Instead he is on some blasted task for Albus and frankly Pop...you saw him at the end. I can't believe...I...Merlin knows what crusade he has sent that poor boy on."

"Neville can think for himself. Whatever he has done he has done because he believed in it. We know all the things he did this year. Things got too hot here, as the kids say, and he has got out of harm's way. The old Neville could never have done any of that. Trust him."

"He is just a boy, Pop. They are all just _children_." She looks far older than she is in that moment and so Poppy gets to her feet and sets about making tea. She wonders if she should tell and if so what. She turns it over in her mind as she swirls the tea pot and levitates mugs over. She takes a risk.

"Min. They are fighting a war that we failed to win the first time but they are smarter than we were. They have resources we did not have and... they will find a way to be safe. Trust me on that, please?"

Her tone is different and her hand takes Minerva's as she says it and that makes the other woman stare. They don't touch unless they are being intimate. Minerva struggles with it and it has never bothered Poppy so Minerva recognises the sign to listen carefully. It takes her a while but she nods eventually. Poppy has said nothing that can be used against either of them because no one else understands how they work. Minerva knows though. She knows Poppy knows they are safe and she trusts her enough to ask nothing more. 

"I'm tired, Pop."

"I know, Min. Let's get you ready for bed."

Poppy helps Minerva get ready, her heart breaking the whole time, and ushers her into bed and pulling the older woman into her arms. She ignores the trembles because Minerva would want her to. 

When the alarm sounds in the chambers that someone has broken into Ravenclaw Tower Minerva goes ridged. One word escapes her lips before she is throwing off the covers and climbing to her feet with a gasp.

"Potter."


	2. Fight Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She returned to her office after Minerva declared Potter was back. Then she had to fight her way out of it.

The battle seems to last forever. Poppy never thought she would fight in a war by actually having to throw hexes and curses. Her fight was meant to be putting people back on the front line when others thought it impossible. Offensive magic was never something she was good at but Death Eaters still blast open the door to the Infirmary and she has to fight her way out either way. Luckily for her and her patients none of them are badly injured and so can still take the Death Eaters on. Returning to her office seemed like the best thing to do once Minerva had declared that Harry Potter had returned to Hogwarts. She just never imagined that she would have to fight her way out of it again. 

Her students left to join the fight and there is no way she could remain behind. Perhaps healing could become preventing the injury in the first place. At the last moment she noticed the younger Greengrass leaving and not knowing for sure either way Poppy stunned her before moving on. Chaos reigned. Having remained in the infirmary when everyone was summoned to the hall Poppy could only guess what was going on but the students being blasted into walls by grown adults told her more than she needed to know so she blasted them back and made sure they would not get up on top of that. Medical comas were meant to heal but push had reached shove. 

She inquired about Minerva. A passing Hufflepuff roared that she was in the courtyard so Poppy headed there. Minerva could only have been where the fighting was worst so that is where Poppy was needed whether to fight or to heal. The world felt backwards, upside down and twisted. It went against everything Poppy stood for. 

Students littered the hallways. So sweet. So innocent. So nearly dead and too many literally. Hexes passed overhead. Curses hit walls. For those holding on there was nothing Poppy could do until the fighting stopped so she did that by joining in once more. When she could she dragged students to cover, put them in status comas and hoped they would make it. Determined, she blasted her way towards Minerva and back to back they made their way towards the Great Hall. When Voldemort called the ceasefire she could only try and calm Minerva who went to pieces.

"Oh, Merlin, oh no. He would give himself over, Pop. I have to find him!" Minerva had despaired. 

" There is no way to know where he is. We have to trust him!"

"Trust him? Well yes but this is Potter! Thinking and planning are not things that he does. No. And Merlin knows what ideas he will put into his own head if Granger is not there!"

"Min, he is an adult. We can only wait. The Death Eaters have retreated. Let's heal the wounded." Poppy had implored. She had more faith in Harry Potter. She had seen him broken in her beds time and time again and fight to get out early time and time again. If anyone was going to find a way it was going to be him but he would need help. She could give him that. 

"Pop, I do not know how to heal."

"And I do not know how to duel yet I managed. Get a move on, Min."

That became that and again the world twisted but they squeezed hands and shared a smile and prepared themselves. If the fighting would return they would be as ready as they could.


	3. to want

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minerva takes on Voldemort himself and thinks of everything she wants from life.

Minerva wants to do many things. The trick is, is she able to do so, should she, and if so is it even worth it? Giving up and running screaming for Poppy crosses her mind more than once as her life flashes alongside it but she should not do that. She has a duty to her students and her fellow staff members and everyone who heard the call and came to defend the Castle. Dumbledore is not here anymore and so she finds herself the head of Hogwarts in the hearts of those on their side. It weighs heavily but then it is not the weight Potter carries so she soldiers on. 

Potter is an utter fool, and if they both live she is going to tell him that several times while hugging him and offering him a stiff drink. Many will hug him. Most will forget that, while she said he was a boy, really he is a grown man. A good man. He is a better man than his life before and during Hogwarts had any right to create. 

Minerva wants the Slytherin students she sees shoving Hufflepuffs out of the way of curses to be remembered. She wants them to be appreciated. Greengrass is being pushed back with Smith lying limp behind her but still she throws up shield charms and the occasional hex. That won't be remembered. She hopes someone will remember that Marcus Flint of all people has answered the call and is battling Death Eaters in the entrance hall with everything he has. Yet, that is all based on the need for her side to be the one that wins. No one that fights for the light will be remembered if they fail, except perhaps those who can be made examples of like Potter, Granger, the Weasleys and yes perhaps her too. 

Thoughts like that will not make her sharp enough to hold of attacks though and all these pass through her head as McNair is determined to very literally take her head off. In the end she takes out the wall above him and crushes him to death with a wince. Taking his life does not bother her but damage to the castle certainly hurts. 

She only has a split second and another is on her and before she knows it she is duelling Lord Voldemort himself. Tom Marvelo Riddle. The Head Boy while she was at school. The half-blood orphan. If only she had known that decades ago she would have made sure the whole world knew, from magical communities in the United States to New Zealand. But she did not know. She knew far too late because Dumbledore hid a secret that could have changed the entire course of the war. It may have stopped the first war even happening. How many purebloods would have followed a half-blood if they knew? Yet so many did not bother to find out. Minerva cannot claim that no one did. Plenty of Death Eaters simply disappeared without reason. It was a letter from Potter that told her. 

She wants better. She wants peace with honesty not a peace build on ties ready to tumble down. She wants to be Headmistress for a few years, see Hogwarts truly unite, and then retire with Poppy. She wants a cottage with a garden. She wants balls of yarn to chase in her Animagus form. She wants the end of all of this. 

Potter demands she step aside and in terror she does so, responding to a tone she has never before heard from the young man and nothing else. Poppy finds her eye. She looks terrified. Minerva cannot back away now. Potter taunts Voldemort and Minerva wonders if he truly is as insane as all the papers have reported but then she notices how the taunts begin to hit the mark, how others in his tale startle as their part is revealed. She feels hope. She wants it to last. 

She needs everything else to end. 

When it does end she stands in shock. What else is there to do? Potter appears stunned and then he simply walks away. Everyone stands still for a moment and then everything explodes. Some Death Eaters erupt in rage and others give up in despair. Some, like the Malfoys, are happy to be in chains as long as they can see that the rest of their family is alive. 

Never has Minerva hated her position more. She wants to go to Poppy and she can see that Poppy wants to come to her but they cannot. Minerva has to find something to do with the body and the attackers and _where in Merlin's name is Kingsley_? Is he even alive? The last she saw he was but that was too long ago when it comes to battle. 

Things seem to take an age to settle but eventually Death Eaters are behind wards in everything from classrooms to cupboards and they can breathe. Minerva finds Poppy where she belongs, helping people. For some Poppy can mend bones and bruises but for others she can do nothing for hearts and minds. St Mungos can help some of them but for others only time may help and even then there may be nothing to be done. 

It takes days before most are evacuated and weeks before enough progress is being made with repairs for Minerva to feel like she can go home for a few days. The first night she has no memory of eating her dinner but knows she sleeps for fifteen hours and wakes to find Poppy washing the long neglected windows of their little London flat. 

Minerva silently crosses the room, forces Poppy's gloves into the bucket of water and then wraps her arms around her. Poppy stills at first and then places her hands over Minerva's. Everything they have ever wanted is now in their reach.


	4. Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The War is over. Pop and Min must repair the Castle.

Peace is a funny word. It implies that things are over. Harry Potter's final defeat of Voldemort meant peace for many but they were the lucky ones. It did not mean peace for those charged with hunting down escaped Death Eaters, searching the dungeons of suspected sympathisers or those in charge of righting the Ministry. It certainly did not mean peace for the Death Eaters on the run. Their war will go on and so will Minerva's. Hogwarts is in ruins. The Castle itself is a ruin with collapsed walls and unstable foundations. Putting up the shield and its subsequent collapse had a major impact. Minerva takes a few days with Poppy before returning to assess the damage. The emergency Ministry cabinet under Kingsley has declared her Headmistress but this is not the way she ever wanted it to happen. Albus was meant to retire and then she would have had time. Being handed a very literally blood stained ruin was not the dream she had turned over in her mind for decades. Yet it is the situation so she sets about righting it. Poppy follows her back, of course she does, and sets about taking stock of the potions and such in both the infirmary and in Slughorn and the late Snape's supplies. 

Snape's funeral is another spectre that haunts Minerva. She has no idea what to think of the man now. For years it was insisted that he was on their side but then he killed Dumbledore and became Headmaster. Some said he made things better when they could have been a lot worse but her lions never seemed to benefit from his protection. In another life Minerva could see Severus as a good headmaster, a headmaster who punished accordingly where Albus did not but more than that she sees bitterness. Potter insists he died a hero. Minerva is not sure Potter understands anything these days. Man or boy, he needs to rest. It will have to wait. 

Her first day mostly consists of blasting rubble aside and hoping she does not stumble across a missing body. The Ghosts tell her where it is dangerous and she works from their advice. Aurors come and go but they have far more important things to do and it is several days before anyone else appears. Grief takes time. Hogwarts does not have time. 

The best thing Hogwarts can do is open as scheduled on the first of September. Minerva sets about preparing the dorms and expanding them for the Muggle first years that were banned the year before. There are no illusions. Many will be dead but Poppy is the one to volunteer to find out and visit anyone still living. Minerva is stunned by the offer. The war must be explained and how Poppy gets so many twelve year olds to come despite the war and murder and hate is beyond Minerva. She really does love that woman. 

New teachers have to be picked from those who fought in the battle. It is a sad fact but no one can be trusted other than those who lifted a wand. Molly Weasley is grieving but she agrees to take on transfiguration and Arthur takes on Defence Against the Dark Arts of all things. Many see Arthur as week which has always irritated Minerva. He is a capable wizard who followed his interest and his pay was quite enough to support family. It just happens his family was larger than most. Horace is shaken but returns to his post at Potions. In fact, he appears a whole new wizard.   
*

"Muggle Studies, Min." Poppy states clearly between her ice cream and tea. "We need everyone to take muggle studies."

"What about muggle children?" Minerva replies having nothing better to say.

"Wizarding culture? Ancient Houses and status and...things? I'm not sure Min but you cannot deny that over the years more Muggle holidays have appeared and now it appears we carve a pumpkin more than we care about Samhain. Perhaps that is why everything went, as they say, belly up."

"Pop. Oh, Pop. Where to even begin?"

"Bring a Muggleborn and a Pureblood you trust in and start from there." 

Somehow, beyond Minerva's belief, that is how Marcus Flint and Penelope Clearwater become Hogwarts Professors. 

*

"Min, we are nearly there. The walls are repaired and teachers replaced. You even have students ready to come back and repeat last year with space for more! You have done so well...so what is wrong? "

That is when Minerva's bones really start to ache. They are back in their little cottage and Pop has the fire on with dinner bubbling away.

" I never feel that it is enough, Pop. I never feel satisfied yet I do not want to be there anymore. I want to retire with you, to this little cottage, permanently."

A cup of tea is put in her hands and a ginger snap biscuit to go with it. Poppy disappears for a few minutes and returns in her dressing gown.

"You cannot save everyone."

"I'm headmistress."

"Minerva, you cannot save everyone. You did everything that you could."

"Did I? They were being tortured!"

"And you never put a child in detention even if before they should have been. You made sure I knew the name of every child to help them. You did everything you could."

"I still feel inadequate."

"Min. Hogwarts is opening in three weeks because of you. You have to embrace that." Poppy says quietly while leaving her armchair to join Minerva on the couch. She curls into Minerva's side and relaxes. "No one could ask for more."

"I ask for more."

"And that is why I love you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://archiveofourown.org/works/4060135 this work fits into this verse just after this chapter. 
> 
>  
> 
> Lavender refuses to believe that she is dead. Gryffindors are not afraid of death and despite all they say about her, Lavender is a Gryffindor.


End file.
